Environmental Impact of Sport Mega-Events

Background

Every year, the Super Bowl brings together millions of people – from fans traveling to the host city, to viewers tuning in from around the globe. This event generates enormous social and economic value, but it also comes with a significant environmental cost. With air travel, hotel stays, energy use, food consumption, waste generation, and massive broadcast operations, the Super Bowl’s environmental footprint is substantial. As we grow more concerned about sustainability, large-scale sporting events or sport mega-events like the Super Bowl are being made more environmentally responsible. External organizations have developed models and scoring systems to rate the sustainability of these large-scale events based on many factors from energy use and waste management to transportation and carbon offsets.

While these environmental scores exist and a wealth of data is available on what event planners are doing to be eco-friendly, sustainability rarely drives key decisions such as where to host an event or how to design its required supporting infrastructure. This disconnect presents an opportunity to build a model where ecological impact is not just an afterthought, but a core driver of planning and location decisions. Imagine a scenario in which host cities are evaluated not only for their economic viability and fan capacity, but also for their renewable energy potential, existing infrastructure efficiency, and transportation accessibility. Such a model would enable organizing committees to balance performance, cost, and sustainability in a measurable way.

The Consulting Organization Making Athletics Planet positive (COMAP) has hired your team as sustainability consultants to assess and reduce the environmental footprint of sport mega-events. The goal is to understand the ecological impact of these events and explore how changes in event planning could make a difference.